Crap on the Borderlands; The Gate

A quick random table for what's happening when the characters are at the gates.

Encounters at the Gate:

1	Caravan from Specularum (Horses, mules, wagons, men)
2	Courier dropping off messages
3	Patrol returning (1-5 routine, 6 Interesting tidbit)
4	Wagon of vegetables being searched upon entry by 3 guards and corporal/sgt.
5	Corporal of the guards and two guards chatting
6-8	Nothing interesting, 2 guards on duty
9	Stable boys playing; 1-3 Knights, 4-6 kick the ball, in the courtyard
10	Castellian, guards are being; 1-2 Disciplined, 3-6 Inspected
11	Adventuring group (always add to the tavern scene at night)
12	Caravan from Yavdlom (3d6 camels, 2d6 men)

Moldvay Adventure Generator 2.0

Looking through my book the other day it hit me that I had seen almost every section of this book rewritten in some manner or another. Except this section of the book. Of course it could just be that I’ve missed something, which is quite likely, but I thought it would be fun and interesting to try and turn the Dungeon Generator in the Moldvay book into an Adventure Generator. One that could be used to spawn short little adventures that do not necessarily take place in a dungeon, but could have a short dungeon crawl component to them. I decided to incorporate the Wandering Monster tables into as well in order to generate some protagonists in addition to the Scenario and Settings table already provided. The only addition I have made at this point was to expand the Settings table to include two additional results. 7 – Wilderness, 8 – Island. I suppose that both tables could be extensively reworked, and I may do so in the future. For now I will stick to what I have as it seems to produce quick low level adventures fairly well.

Main Protagonist: Roll on the Level 3 Wandering Monster chart (B54). This is the main villain of our little story. The confrontation with this “monster” is not optional and destroying them or their plans is the finale of the story.

Scenario Table: (B51) roll a d10.

Setting Table: (B51) roll a d6, or a d8 with the changes above. This is where your PC’s will find the main protagonist.

Secondary Actors: Roll twice on Wandering Monster Level 1 table (B53), and then roll once on the Wandering Monster Level 2 table. One of these creatures may be an ally to the PC’s. They should all figure into the story in some manner. Maybe they caused the trouble, were pushed out of their territory by the main protagonist, or maybe they work for him. Each should play a role in the adventure whether friend or foe, but they may not always be necessary to complete the adventure, and may only be a diversion. One set of creatures may also use the in lair numbers, instead of just the number from the wandering monster tables.

If you get a roll for a creature that just doesn’t seem to fit the story, ask yourself, would a trap work better?  If so use a trap. If not reroll or just pick what you think works best. Personally, I try to work whatever I get into the story, but sometimes you gotta cut something loose if it just doesn’t work.

Strangeness: Add something unique to you adventure to help make it memorable.

The work here is tying it all together in a way that makes sense, or best makes sense to you.

Adventure 1

Main Protagonist: Mediums (4) (3, 1st level MU and 1, 3rd level MU)
Scenario: Using a magic portal

Setting: Ancient temple

Secondary Actors: Goblins (6), Traders (4), Neanderthals (1 warrior, 24 tribespeople)

Strangeness: Magic Portal, tentacled beast from a far realm.

The mediums and their leader are looking for the sacrifices they need to perform a summoning ritual. They hired the task out to a local trader who secretly works with a band of goblins that kidnap people that he then sells into slavery in the land to the south. The trader and his goblins had a hard time finding the required number of people for the mediums. This was largely due to the fact that the goblins went a little crazy raiding a local thorp and killed most of the peasants. So they ended up running across a tribe of Neanderthals and decided, they were close enough. Three Neanderthal warriors gave pursuit to the slavers and ended up getting, killed, captured, or fleeing into the woods. The remaining Neanderthal is still shadowing the slavers waiting for an opportunity to free his friends.

The mediums were not so happy with the sacrificial victims, apparently they decided that “close” wouldn’t do and so they charmed the goblins and captured the trader and his human companions and plan to sacrifice them instead.

The PC’s should stumble upon the burned thorp, the dead and remaining villagers and get involved in this way, tracking the slavers across the mountains and possibly befriending the lone Neanderthal. Helping to rescue his tribesmen by fighting the goblins at the base of the temple, and rescuing the local peasants by fighting the mediums who are at the top of the temple and in the middle of summoning ritual. If there are too many mediums for the party to handle, the portal is partially open and a tentacle can snatch one of them away into the portal.

Adventure 2

Main Protagonist: Thoul
Scenario: Chaotic Outpost

Setting: Caves

Secondary Actors: Goblins (12), Kobolds (10), Driver Ants (16)

Strangeness: Kobold goo that makes a driver ants blind to their presence.

The Thoul is the sole survivor of a hobgoblin band that was wiped out by adventurers. He stumbled across the goblins and quickly became their leader. Months later they came across the koblods who were living in the driver ant cave. The kobold learned to make and are using a concoction that when applied to the body makes the driver ants “blind” to their presence. The thoul has taken the kobolds lair as his own, relying on the ants to serve as guards the goblins, and kobold to serve as raiders to fatten his belly and his purse.

The kobolds are bullied by the goblins and the thoul and have lost numerous tribal members. They came up with a plan to raid and attack as many humans along the main road in order to attract attention. The last time they attacked merchant caravans on the road, adventurers showed up and they were forced to flee temporarily. They are hoping to attract a band of adventurers to take out the thoul and the goblins. They will avoid any fights unless cornered.

Rumor: Kobolds and some say goblins have been raiding caravans along the western road again.

Adventure 3

Main Protagonist: Tiger Beetles (4)
Scenario: Rescue

Setting: Wilderness

Secondary Actors: Trader (1), Sprites (5), Draco Lizard (1)

Strangeness:

PC’s come around the bend in a road to find a massive blood splatter on the road. Whatever was killed lost a lot of blood. Investigation reveals that it looks to have been a horse and rider. There are human tracks that head off to the left of the road, while the horse seems to have been dragged off the road to the right.

A local trader was travelling on the mountain road just a little ahead of the PC’s. He was spotted by a band of Pixies who decided it would be great fun to mess with him. They spooked his horse and he was thrown, he managed to get up and flee off to the left of the road hoping to get away from the faeries but he wasn’t watching where he was going and fell down a steep narrow ravine. He broke his leg in the fall and landed near a tiger beetle lair, but is high enough up on a terrace that the creatures can only approach one at a time up the steep incline that he can push them backwards with a branch, toppling them down the rise. Though each time he manages to push one away it takes a bite or two from his branch. His time and branch grow shorter every time the tiger beetles come at him.

His horse stayed near the edge of the road after his master had been chased into the woods on the left of the road. Unfortunately for the horse, the spot he was grazing is below the entrance of a Draco Lizard lair. The Draco Lizard found the horse to be to irresistible a temptation and flew down and attacked the horse. After killing it he dragged it off the road into the underbrush to dine in peace. He is still dining and will continue to do so unless attacked.

The pixies feel bad about causing injury to the trader and will seek out the help of the PC’s to help rescue him. They will assist in any way possible, that is of course unless the PC’s are rude or mean to them. In which case they will use their powers on the PC’s, promptly forgetting about the trader.

Adventure 4

Main Protagonist: Driver Ants (6)
Scenario: Chaotic Outpost

Setting: Stronghold or Town

Secondary Actors: Gnomes (8/12), Bandits (4), Black Widow Spider (1)

Strangeness: Regenerating Driver Ants.

The driver ants cleaned up their lair after the PC’s killed the goblin and the thoul. Bits of each fed to the queen and there was a strange reaction in the new ants that were hatched. The thouls heritage, being part troll, resulted in the new driver ants gaining regenerative powers.

Weeks or months later a group of bandits came across the lair of the Driver Ants that the PC’s had cleared of the thoul and the goblins. After a bit of searching they found several vents and built bonfires over them in order to smoke them out. It worked and the ants were forced out of their lair along with any kobolds that remained. The bandits and the kobolds got into a bit of a scape and most of the kobolds were killed along with several of the bandits. The bandits quickly fortified their new stronghold with a palisade and a sturdy door.

After a few attempts to get back into their lair the ants moved on to try and find a new lair. The ants came across a small mining operation in another part of the valley. It was ran by two gnome brothers and their employees. The ants managed to split the gnomes into two groups. They drove one group out of the mine, while the other group retreated further into the mine. Normally the driver ants wouldn’t pose a problem for so many able bodied gnome miners, but the brother claims that each time they killed an ant and hacked it to pieces it grew it’s limbs back and got back up. As fate would have it, the brothers were leading both groups of gnomes. The older brother who is on the outside is desperately attempting to recruit people to go back into the mine and help him rescue or find his younger brother.

The black widow spider has lived in the mine for some time. Her lair is high up in crevasse above one of the main chambers. She is a smart and cunning old spider and knows to space her kills out and to only attack when there is a lone gnome. So far the gnomes are unaware of her presence just chalking up the missing miners, to them getting lost in the maze of tunnels. The old spider has caught several ants already and has discovered their ability to regenerate. She has them securely wrapped in webs and feasts upon them regularly, when they regenerate she feasts upon them again. This has the potential to be an endless food supply for her, so she is is actively searching the caves for more ants. She may attack the PC’s by surprise (3 in 6) while they are attacking any ants in the cave as she wishes to take them alive. Though she will quickly retreat if wounded.

The second group of gnomes is deeper in the mine. They are still alive, though they have casualties and are running out of food and water.

Adventure 5

Main Protagonist: Zombies (18)
Scenario: Visit a lost shrine

Setting: Ancient temple

Secondary Actors: Dwarves (5), Acolyte (6), Living Statue (1)

Strangeness: Interference by the Gods and a super living statue.

A group of Acolytes have discovered the location of a lost shrine dedicated to an ancient hero of the land. The wish to travel to the shrine and reclaim it from the wilderness and restore it to its former glory. To accomplish their mission they have hired a band of dwarven mercenaries to guard them on their travels through the wilderness. They went out a week ago but came back after getting lost, they wish to hire the PC’s as guides and extra body guards. All of the Acolytes are 1^st level and have no spells but will fight if they must, though they armed only with staffs and clubs.

The dwarves are not actually mercenaries. They are the descendants of a dwarven weapon-smith who forged the hero’s sword. Their great-grandfather literally put his soul into the sword. Working on the blade for weeks on end without stopping, he became obsessed with it the story goes, refusing to leave the forge until it was perfect. Suddenly the ringing from the forge stopped, and the smith was nowhere to be found, but lo and behold the sword was setting on the forge, a masterwork beyond compare. Years later the smith’s son lost the sword while gambling with the hero, and it has always been a sore topic with the family, as he had no right to gamble it away. Now, years later few remember these old stories, so they when the Acolytes announced finding the location of the ancient temple the dwarves heard about it and decided to recover what is, they believe, to be rightly theirs, and anything else of value the might find. They will loot the crypt of the warrior king and take the sword with them unless stopped. The acolytes have no idea about the dwarves and their connection to the hero’s sword.

The temple is built into the wall of a cliff, the entrance is a giant statue of the warrior king carved into the side of the cliff sitting on his throne. His hands resting on the hilt of his sword which is between his legs. The stair lead up to the statues feet and the tip of the sword, the bottom portion of which is a secret door. The zombies are raised by the God of the dead, Stygia, who does not care for adventurers and in this case the dwarves who are out to spoil the tomb and disturb the slumber of the dead. He raises the dead hero’s most loyal knights to stop the greedy dwarves when they enter the temple. If that fails he will breathe life into the living statue to stop the dwarves when they try to leave the temple. The statue is 18’ tall and has 4+12 HD. The acolytes will not be harmed by the minions of stygia, the dwarves will notice this at some point and may attempt to take advantage of this fact and use them as hostages.

Alternate Weapon Damage and Traits for B/X

Axes:	Damage	Size	Cost	Enc.	Properties
Battle Axe	d8	L	7	60	Cleave, Two-handed
Hand Axe	d6	S	4	30	Off-hand, Thrown
Bows:
Crossbow	2d6	L	60	80	Reload 5
Long Bow	d6	L	40	30	Reload 1, Ranged, Two-handed
Short Bow	d6	M	25	20	Reload 1, Ranged, Two-handed
Daggers:
Normal	d6	S	3	10	Off-hand, Thrown
Silver	d6	S	30	10	Off-hand, Thrown
Swords:
Long Sword	d6	M	10	60	Versatile
Short Sword	d6	M	7	30	Off-hand
Two-handed Sword	d8	L	15	100	Two-handed, Cleave
Other Weapons:
Mace*	d4	M	5	30	Blunt, Versatile
Club*	d4	M	3	50	Blunt, Versatile
Javelin	d6	M	1	20	Thrown
Lance	d6	L	5	180	Reach, Mounted
Pole Arm	d6	L	7	150	Reach, Two-handed
Sling*	d6	S	2	10	Reload 1, Ranged, Improvised Melee
Spear	d6	L	3	30	First Strike, Two-handed
Staff*	d4	L	2	40	Off-hand, Two-handed
War Hammer*	d6	M	5	50	Blunt, Versatile

*May be used by a Cleric

Cost in Gp

Wt. in Coins

Blunt: These weapon have no sharp edges and so do less damage than bladed weapons. One advantage that they do have is that on a Critical Hit the weapon does it’s max damage, but the additional damage roll is instead used to determine the number of rounds the target is stunned. Helmets, when worn on the head lessen the impact of stunning blows by a d4 or d6.

Cleave: Damage is applied to the target of the attack, if the target is killed by the attack any extra damage is applied to another target adjacent to the attacker. If no other target is close enough to attack the extra damage is lot.

Off-hand: This weapon can be used in either hand.

Improvised Melee: Can be used to make a melee attack as a club or garrote.

Thrown: May be used to make ranged attacks.

Two-handed: This weapon requires both hands to use properly for most wielders. Characters with a 17 or 18 Strength can use two-handed melee weapons one-handed but it does a stepwise decrease in damage, despite this it is totally bad-ass.

First Strike: This weapon can be used to make an attack on one enemy who moves adjacent to the wielder per round. The wielder must have an attack available otherwise this option is lost.

Reach: Can be used to make attacks over adjacent allies, but cannot be used to attack enemies adjacent to the wielder.

Ranged: This weapon may only be used to make Ranged attacks.

Versatile: May be wielded one or two-handed. If used one-handed it does the damage listed, if used two-handed it gains a step-wise damage increase. Cannot be used two-handed if the wielder is using a shield.

Mounted: This weapon is made to be used from horseback and does twice the normal damage on a charge attack. If used on foot it is treated as a Pole-arm.

Reload: The number of rounds it takes to load and fire the weapon.

Small and Large Weapons cannot be effectively used while mounted.

Seriously, Have We Learned Nothing?

Raising Attributes as Characters Level.

In some games that I have played over the years, PC’s gain points to raise their basic attributes every so often. This has never sat well with me, even as a player. Raising an already high attribute doesn’t really show that a character has grown, as was the intention I suppose. Merely it comes off as a way to make your character even more powerful and munchkin. As said characters are going to need it because all of the monsters just got extra HP and crap too.

So one of my most common house rules is to allow characters to improve attributes as they level, but as you might have guessed, in the opposite manner. Each time a character levels the player increases that characters lowest attribute by one point. If the character has two or more attributes that suck equally, the player gets to choose which one goes up a point. This keeps players from maxing out stats and at the same time keeps them from playing a 10th level cleric with a 5 Intelligence. Who after gaining 10 levels from adventuring is just as stupid as they were the day they started. 

Moldvay B/X Barbarian Class

Barbarians

Barbarians are can be from any climate or geographic region. They are any group of people who live small communities of sedentary or nomadic people who have their own culture outside what others would consider civilized lands. Barbarian tribes and clans value loyalty, honesty, bravery, strength, and prowess in battle. They have little need for money, preferring instead to barter amongst themselves, but those adventuring outside in the wider world will use coin when necessary. The prime requisites for a Barbarian are Strength and Dexterity. A Barbarian character with a 13 or greater in a prime requisite will gain a + 10% bonus on earned experience points

Restrictions: Barbarians us a d8 to determine their Hit Points. They may use leather armor, chainmail, in addition to shields and helmets. They may use any type of weapon except pole-arms, and lances. Barbarians do not suffer the weak to live, and so all Barbarian characters must have a minimum Constitution score of 9.

Special Abilities: They tend to be great hunters, trackers and warriors. They are hardy people inured to the hardships of living off the land, hunger, cold, or desert heat, whatever may be the case. This life of hardship has given them better saving throws than most other classes. They can follow the tracks of man, monster or animal one third of the time (2 in 6 chance). They also have improved chances of hearing noises, a 2 in 6 chance instead the normal 1 in 6 chance. All Barbarians speak their tribal language, Common, plus one additional language.

XP

2200

Wolf-packs and Winter Snow: Part I

 Wolf-packs and Winter Snow by Emmy Allen

I have been eyeing this game since I first spotted it on RPGnow a month or so back. An rpg set in the upper paleolithic, how awesome is that? Well it turns out, pretty darn awesome. I purchased the pdf last Friday and have read through the game at least three times now. I dig it that much.

The rule system is very much OSR or even just Old School Moldvay, but the rules are not simply just another clone, they have a lot of new bits, that like good bits should, add a ton of flavor.

So what exactly do you get? Well to start with you get the familiar set of attributes straight out of OD&D. You get a short list of classes, Hunter, Expert, and Magician (though I would have preferred the term Shaman), and Neandertal. There is also a list of alternate classes in the appendix that I would use as a "consolation" prize for people who role up pretty hopeless characters.

Hunters are ...well hunters. They excel in tracking and poking animals with sharp pointy things.

There is a brief skill system that uses the old Xin6 chance for success in any skill attempt. The Specialists get a small number of points they can put into the skills of the players choosing. The skill list is small enough to be easy to remember and use, but diverse enough that your group could conceivably all play Experts and there wouldn't be much overlap in skills if any.

Magicians use Vancian spell casting found in the older editions (or maybe all of them) of D&D, but as an added twist to this old system is the lack of spellbook. So each magician needs a sanctum, a cave near their home base where they can record their spells as paintings on the cave walls. There is also a system or two for crafting magical items, and I might even let magicians replace the cave painting things with tattoos so they look like Otzi or the Siberian Ice Princess (even though these are much later in time).

Neandertals are a mix of Hunters and Experts with a good bit of Flesh and Grit mixed in.

So hit points are split into two systems Flesh and Grit. Flesh represents physical injury and Grit is more the bumps, bruises and fatigue aspect. Grit comes back with rest, while Flesh takes longer and requires medicine and healing. Also, failing a Healing check results in further injury to the PC, which made me laugh out loud, because I can think of more than a dozen games where people just kept rolling those heal checks until a character got better. Well not any more! Me thinks this will be standard practice in all games henceforth. Mwuuuuhahahahahahah. Ah good stuff.

Next is equipment and encumbrance system. It is a really streamlined system that should be intuitive and easy for people to remember. My players constantly complain about Basic D&D's encumbrance system which I think is pretty damn easy to handle. So this should be right up their alley. You get two items, gear, weapon, armor, what have you, per point of strength. Over this and you are severely burdened. Small stuff like needles, a bit of string, a stick of chalk don't count at all, or take up one slot at the DM's discretion for every five items or so. There is a simple chart that gives movement rates and penalties, easy enough.

Equipment can get messed up and broken. There is an easy system to keep track of that.

Cannibalism, it can happen in the depths of winter when there is no food. So it can keep you alive but bad things will happen to your mental health as a result.

Light sources. Now you would think this would be pretty standard like in most games. You know, where a torch lasts for 6 turns exactly, each and every time. Well not here due to inconsistent manufacturing, guess that Expert wasn't as good as he thought at making torches. In all likelihood the torch will probably last longer in this game than in most other OSR games, but its an interesting mechanic.

Lots of good information and rules covering poison, cold weather, fire, altitude sickness, and more, all good stuff and really fun to incorporate into the game.

Combat is that pretty much as you would expect it, roll d20 to hit plus modifiers. Though there are a lot more choices for combat. It reminds me quite a bit of the Dragon Age RPG (and now Fantasy Age) combat options. Which is a good thing, more options the better. Armor Class is Ascending and thus pretty easy. The list of weapons is short, as you would expect in a game set in this period.

Well, I will leave off here for now. Hopefully I can post up a part II in the next few days as the game still has lots more cool stuff to offer an Ice Age gaming aficionado. Like building a tribe, herbalism, magical backlash, exploring caves, exploring wilderness and more. I would also like to discuss the few things I don't like about the game. We all know no game is perfect, but I only have a few quibbles and those I can count on one hand. Which is more than I can say for some games that I have played dozens or hundreds of times.